Adding wallpapers in GNOME Shell
Is there any way I could set the [Wallpapers] tab to automatically find new pictures under /usr/share/backgrounds/ as well?
There's no such option. The [Wallpapers] tab shows the default choice of wallpapers (which may vary depending on distros/admins) available to all users. Distros/admins may choose to alter the content of /usr/share/backgrounds/
(along with the corresponding entries in the .xml
file). I don't think it was meant to be customized by regular users.
is there a way I could change the configuration, so that, when clicking on the [Pictures] tab, it will look under /whatever/i/want/ instead of ~/Pictures/?
Yes, the [Pictures] tab is, to some extent, customizable. Pictures
is one of the XDG user directories and is defined in ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs
. Change the default value XDG_PICTURES_DIR="$HOME/Pictures"
to XDG_PICTURES_DIR="/whatever/i/want"
, restart the shell and next time you click on the [Pictures] tab in the [Background] settings, it'll look under /whatever/i/want
.
The downside is that some other applications that use XDG_PICTURES_DIR
will also default to /whatever/i/want
instead of ~/Pictures
.
/usr/share/gnome-background-properties/desktop-backgrounds-default.xml
holds the settings for the wallpapers; while there doesn't seem to be any command to rescan that XML file (one still can add further XML files into there, which keep an up-to-date index of some other directory).
however, one can define individual filenames:
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background picture-uri 'file:///whatever/i/want/background.jpg'
and one can access other parameters like that, as well:
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background picture-options 'centered'
when scripting wallpaper-changes, one has to set draw-background
before and after:
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background draw-background false
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background picture-uri file:///whatever/i/want/background.jpg
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background draw-background true
there's also the gnome-tweak-tool
which provides a GUI to these gconf
settings.
@see Bug 682126 - Show the user's most recent photos.